Page 82 of Twisting Beauty

“You say that like you’re surprised.”

“I say it like I picked it.”

He straightened with two small glasses in his hand, something yellow and shimmering inside them catching the firelight.

He held a glass out, his eyes on my face. “Have a drink with me.”

“No.”

His mouth curved. “That’s the third time tonight you’ve told me no.”

“You don’t like it when people tell you no.”

He smirked. “People never tell me no.”

“I’ll keep going ’cause you obviously need the practice.”

I turned again to leave.

I took two steps onto the gravel path between the black roses before his hand slung around my waist and he pulled me back against him. My body hit his, hard and firm, all heat and muscle, and a sharp, traitorous shiver ran through me before I could stop it.

Before I could protest, his mouth came down on mine without warning. His lips were firm yet soft. Warm and tasting like licorice.

My whole body went rigid.

Heat hit first, sudden and violent, surging through my body until my skin felt too tight to contain it.

For one fractured second, some last sane part of me flashed to the thought that someone could appear and see us like this, see his arm tight around my waist and my body caught against his. But the thought barely formed before the force of him obliterated everything else.

My head spun. The world dropped away in ragged pieces, the fire, the music, the crowd, all of it collapsing until there was nothing left but the hard length of him and the mouth on mine. His violins in my skull swelled until it was the only thing I could hear.

My pulse turned wild. My knees went soft. Every nerve in me lit at once and I hated it, hated him, hated my own body most of all for answering him like it had been waiting for this.

This was my enemy.

The boy trying to expose me.

The boy who could ruin everything.

I fought it. I did. I held myself stiff for one useless, shaking second, trying to keep the line between us intact, trying to remember every reason I should shove him off and run.

Then something I’d been holding back gave way.

A broken sound caught in my throat. My fingers tightened in his shirt. I kissed him back before sense or reason could stop me. Once I gave an inch, the rest of me followed. I melted against him with a sick, helpless ache, my body yielding where it should’ve resisted, leaning into his heat like I belonged there.

His hand came up to cradle my jaw, his thumb against my cheekbone as his soft tongue pressed against my lips.

The gentleness of it was a trap. I forgot to be suspicious of it.

So, stupid me, I opened up for him.

His hand around the back of my head tightened, locking me into place, and the taste of anise spread across my tongue, warm and faintly bitter as he forced liquid into my mouth through our kiss.

I swallowed out of instinct before I choked.

I’d said no to a drink. He’d forced one into me anyway.

I shoved him back hard, my hand already at my mouth, fingers wiping my lips as I coughed. “What the fuck?”